Onset of Tethered Chain Overcrowding

William Y. Chen, Joseph X. Zheng, Stephen Z. D. Cheng, Christopher Y. Li, Ping Huang, Lei Zhu, Huiming Xiong, Qing Ge, Ya Guo, Rodric P. Quirk, Bernard Lotz, Lingfeng Deng, Chi Wu, and Edwin L. Thomas

Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 028301 – Published 7 July 2004

Abstract

We proposed an approach to precisely control the density of tethered chains on solid substrates using PEO-b-PS and PLLA-b-PS. As the crystallization temperature $T_{x}$ increased, the PEO or PLLA lamellar crystal thickness $d_{L}$ increased as well as the reduced tethering density $\tilde{σ}$ of the PS chains. The onset of tethered PS chains overcrowding in solution occurs at ${\tilde{σ}}^{*} \sim 3.7 - 3.8$ as evidenced by an abrupt change in the slope between $(d_{L})^{- 1}$ and $T_{x}$ . This results from the extra surface free energy created by the tethered chain that starts to affect the growth barrier of the crystalline blocks.

Received 3 October 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.028301

Authors & Affiliations

William Y. Chen¹, Joseph X. Zheng¹, Stephen Z. D. Cheng^1,*, Christopher Y. Li², Ping Huang¹, Lei Zhu³, Huiming Xiong¹, Qing Ge¹, Ya Guo¹, Rodric P. Quirk¹, Bernard Lotz⁴, Lingfeng Deng⁵, Chi Wu⁵, and Edwin L. Thomas⁶

¹Maurice Morton Institute and Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325-3909, USA
²Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, USA
³Polymer Program, Institute of Materials Science and Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3136, USA
⁴Institute of Charles Sadron, 6 Rue Boussingault, Strasbourg 67083, France
⁵Departments of Physics and Chemistry, Hong Kong Chinese University, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
⁶Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

^*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email address: scheng@uakron.edu

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Vol. 93, Iss. 2 — 9 July 2004

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